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Coventry City relegated to League Two

Coventry City have been relegated to League Two after a 1-1 draw with Charlton Athletic. The 1987...



Coventry City relegated to Lea...
Soccer

Coventry City relegated to League Two

Coventry City have been relegated to League Two after a 1-1 draw with Charlton Athletic.

The 1987 FA Cup winners last played in the fourth tier in 1959.

They were a Premier League club for 34 years until they were relegated from the top flight in 2001, precipitating a long decline for the club.

Today's game was twice stopped after Charlton fans threw plastic pigs on the pitch to protest against the club's owner, the latest in a long period of protests against ownership group Sisu.

With three games to go in League One, Coventry are bottom of the table, 10 points adrift of safety and mathematically are unable to avoid dropping down to the final tier of the Football League.

After 106 years at their old Highfield Road stadium, they moved into the Ricoh Arena in 2005 but have had issues related to home grounds in the intervening years.

As explained to Newstalk in February, The Coventry Telegraph's Simon Gilbert, who also authored Coventry City: A Club Without a Home: The Fight Behind the Sky Blues' Return from Exile, said of the stadium move: "The idea was that Coventry City would own half the stadium and that the profits they would generate from the stadium would more than cover the rent and it wouldn't be a problem. But they sold their half share in the stadium and also sold all their income in revenue streams from the stadium as a result which meant that they were left with £1.3 million in rent and with all these bills that would have come in income on the other side of the coin. So they were in a really, really bad position and you have to really question the judgement of the people involved in terms of why they took that deal." 

In 2013, while disputing the aforementioned Ricoh Arena rent agreement, Coventry temporarily moved their home matches to the town of Northampton to play at Sixfields Stadium, before returning to the Ricoh in 2014.

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